Low power and Lossy Networks (LLNs), e.g., sensor networks, have a myriad of applications, such as Smart Grid and Smart Cities. Various challenges are presented with LLNs, such as lossy links, low bandwidth, battery operation, low memory and/or processing capability, etc. One example routing solution to LLN challenges is a protocol called Routing Protocol for LLNs or “RPL,” which is a distance vector routing protocol that builds a Destination Oriented Directed Acyclic Graph (DODAG, or simply DAG) in addition to a set of features to bound the control traffic, support local (and slow) repair, etc. The RPL architecture provides a flexible method by which each node performs DODAG discovery, construction, and maintenance.
Furthermore, the traffic routing on the DAG is often directed to (or from) a Field Area Router (FAR) in the LLN, where the FAR in turn may direct traffic over a backhaul link, e.g., to a management system. When a FAR experiences a connectivity failure, for example, due to a planned maintenance (e.g., performing a firmware upgrade, planned power outage, etc.) or a malfunction (e.g., unexpected power outage, recovering from a run-time exception, a watchdog reset, etc.) disruption occurs in the routing topology while devices in the routing topology search for alternate available paths to reach the FAR, and rebuilding of the LLN topology may be time consuming.